A Surprise
Five
"They've been in there forever." Terriermon whines.
"Forty-seven minutes is not forever." Renamon says patiently from her spot under a large tree. She has made herself comfortable under its shade while Terriermon hops from branch to branch, stopping occasionally to flop to the ground next to Renamon and voice his impatience.
"It's pretty close, if you ask me. What are they even doing in there?"
"Now that Ruki and Jen have decided to keep the child, they will need to attend frequent sessions with a doctor to make sure everything is going well." The fox repeats what Ruki told her last night.
Terriermon hops down to the ground. "I still can't believe they're having one of those things." He says, pointing out a passing stroller. "It's going to be like having Culumon over all the time. Goodbye, lazy weekends and late mornings." He sighs mournfully.
"Only if we're lucky," Renamon answers to her friend's comparison between a human child and Culumon.
"And if we're not?" Terriermon asks, eyes curious and wary.
Renamon smirks. "Then it will be like having two of you."
"Hey!" Terriermon cries, though he takes no real offense at the joke the fox has made at his expense. He studies Renamon with a rare thoughtful look on his face. "Sometimes I don't know if I should be insulted by your jokes or honored that you share them with me."
The taller Digimon considers her companion's words for a moment, but they're both interrupted before she can settle on a reply.
"Well, well. Fancy meeting you two here."
"Impmon!" Terriermon greets happily. "What are you doing here?"
"Trying to entertain myself and failing miserably, of course. This one-horse town grows duller by the year, doesn't it?" The newcomer smirks, standing on a nearby bench.
"I don't think this counts as a one-horse town…" Terriermon muses. "Right, Renamon?"
The fox nods. "Shinjuku is designated a special ward of the Tokyo metropolis and houses key administrative buildings of the government. It is also home to the busiest train station in the world." She recites, earning herself some odd looks.
"Does she have all this stuff memorized?" Impmon stage-whispers to Terriermon.
"I think she spends all day on Wikipedia." Terriermon returns in the same sotto voce tone.
Renamon does not seem outwardly amused by their exchange but if one knows to look for it, there are small signs that give her away. The tiniest hint of a smile tugs at her lips and her eyes aren't slanted in their usual narrow, calculating gaze. There had been a time when she'd shown emotions only around Ruki, but as her Tamer's relationship with Jenrya had grown, that bubble had expanded to include Jen and Terriermon. As the years passed, her smiles became a more frequent sight to all the Tamers and Digimon in their circle, and one could, upon very rare occasions, find her laughing along with the others if a particularly funny situation arose. Those were extremely rare occasions, however.
"It's no fun if you're not going to let us bait you into an insult match." Impmon tells her, crossing his arms. Renamon spares him a quick glance before her eyes return to the main entrance of the hospital. Jen and Ruki should be coming out soon.
Impmon shivers. "Brr," he mocks, "it's like I'm talking to the Ice Queen here."
Terriermon frowns. "Hey, be nice!" He chides, sticking up for Renamon.
Her eyes still focused upon the hospital, Renamon addresses the rabbit. "It is alright, Terriermon. Impmon shows fondness by antagonizing his friends. It is done with no real malice; it is simply an emotional and social handicap."
"There we go!" Impmon claps his hands together at the fox's blunt statement of his faults. "Ouch, that one almost hurt."
"I am glad to be a worthy opponent." Renamon states flatly. Terriermon's eyes flit from one Digimon to the other.
"You two are almost as confusing as humans."
He's ready for Impmon to rant at him for comparing him to a human, but Ruki and Jen emerge right then. Ruki is carefully tucking something away in her bag while Jen keeps a hand on her back, guiding her across the road.
"Impmon," He greets with a note of surprise. "What brings you to the hospital?"
"Oh, is that what this place is?" Impmon drawls, feigning ignorance. "Well, I'll leave you four to it, then." To Renamon, he says, "Give me some time, fox. I'll be prepared with more burns the next time we meet."
"If one needs that long to build a fire, perhaps one has no business wielding flames in the first place." Renamon retorts evenly.
"And that's a scoreboard of Renamon – 2, Impmon – 0!" Terriermon announces.
"Hey, I've got one point!" Impmon protests. "The Ice Queen thing!"
Terriermon shakes his head. "Nope. That was so lazy, it doesn't even count. Better luck next time, trickster."
"Beginner's luck." He mutters to Renamon before turning to Ruki and Jen; the couple has donned matching looks that hint at equal measures of confusion and amusement.
"My felicitations on your new addition." Impmon says courteously, though it's delivered as a drawl and is infused with a tiny amount of sarcasm. The latter, though, is customary to Impmon even when he is at his most sincere.
Terriermon puts into words the question they're all asking themselves. "Hey, how'd you find ou-"
"You honestly thought I wouldn't eavesdrop on the two of you?"
And with that, Impmon jumps up into a tree. They track his movement from branch to branch, gaining altitude until he can swing his way onto a telephone pole and from there, a rooftop.
"Well." Ruki says after a moment of silence. "Some Digimon never change, I guess."
Renamon acknowledges her words with a barely-noticeable smirk. "Are you ready to leave?" She asks, directing the question to both Tamers.
The only appointment the OB/GYN had been able to give Ruki on such short notice had been one-thirty in the afternoon, and Renamon had offered to transport everyone over rather than have Jen drive to the hospital in midday traffic and then rush back to the office.
"Yes," Ruki decides. "We should get back now; Yamaki wants me in his office in half an hour."
"Didn't you tell the office you'll be out?" Jen asks as they all huddle together. Renamon places a hand on Ruki's shoulder while Jen's hand remains on her back, and Terriermon wraps his ears around his Tamer's neck.
"I just told them I was in the mood for a long lunch." Ruki says before they all close their eyes and let Renamon guide them back.
They appear in the parking lot and Terriermon hops to the ground as soon as they materialize. "Ugh," he groans, "that place always gives me the creeps."
"What do you mean?" Jen's eyebrows furrow in concern as he picks his Digimon up.
"We don't feel anything. It's like we're here one second and there the next." Ruki adds, eyes fixed on the small rabbit.
"Digimon are more aware of the shadow world," Renamon explains. "We can feel the nothing that it is, the winds that threaten to lead you off-world with their whispers. We can hear those who have lost their way and those who choose to make it their home. It is… not for everyone."
"That's putting it mildly but yeah, what she said. Especially the wind and the creepy lost ones." Terriermon nods, still curled up in Jen's arms.
"Is that why so few Digimon travel the way you do?" Jen asks Renamon, his interest growing. Renamon's unique method of transportation has been such a common part of his everyday life that he's never really thought to question the way it works.
"It plays a role, yes. But few Digimon are granted this ability in the first place. Of those few, only half of us grow strong enough to navigate the shadows on a regular basis. Some give up as soon as they hear the winds. Some learn too much about that world after years of traveling, and choose to turn their backs on it."
"You've never told me any of this." Ruki says to her partner, careful to keep any hint of accusation out of her voice. She's merely curious, and a bit concerned.
"You never asked, and it is not something to speak of unless prompted."
Ruki shrugs as they pile into the lift. "As long as you're fine with the winds and the creepy things."
"There might come a day when the whispers grow too familiar for me, but it is a day far from now." Renamon assures her.
"Oh, look," Terriermon says. "Renamon's back to talking in her mysterious way again."
"Hush, you." Jen chides as they reach his floor.
"We'll see you three later, I suppose." He grins, kissing Ruki on the cheek as he brushes a hand across her stomach.
"Thanks for the ride, Renamon!" Terriermon calls out as they exit the lift, and the door closes to the image of the rabbit waving his little hand.
Ruki turns to her partner, hoping to question her further on the shadow world and how concerned she should be, but her phone starts ringing just as they arrive at the right floor.
It's Juri, and she decides to take it if only because it will discourage people from stopping her on her way back to her office to ask her a dozen questions and try to pass their files to her for approval. She's in a rush as it is; her meeting with Yamaki is in twenty minutes.
"Hello?"
"Well?" Juri skips all pleasantries. "How did it go?"
"Fine, I guess." Ruki says simply, looking around to see if anyone's watching her. No one appears to be listening in on her conversation, so she continues in a lower, cautious tone. "The baby is okay."
"Oh," Juri sighs happily. "That's good to hear."
"Yeah," She agrees as Renamon holds the door open for her. "That's one less thing to worry about."
"Exactly. Hey, I was wondering: are you going to tell the guys?"
Ruki slides into her chair and sifts through files to locate the report she'd typed out after their recent meeting with a group of doctors looking into organ replication. She has a feeling that's why Yamaki wants to see her. "You mean Takato and Tweedles Dee and Dum?"
"Play nice!" Juri laughs. "I know you don't mind them that much."
"I don't," She admits. "But I don't actually like them, either. Not enough to put up with their reactions to this, anyway. Jen can tell them the next time he has lunch with them."
"I could do it, if you'd like." Juri offers. "I'm having dinner with them tonight."
She finally locates the file. Of course it had been the last one in the biggest pile. "Sure, go ahead. I'm sure you'll muster up more excitement than I would."
"Oh, don't say that, Ruki. You're doing fine with this. We all know you're happy about the baby, you just don't show it that much, is all."
"Yeah, and to some people that means I'm not happy at all." Ruki mutters. And then, before Juri can try to defend her from herself, "Juri, can I call you back later? I've got a meeting in ten minutes."
"Sure." Juri agrees. "I'll let you know how it goes tonight?"
Ruki doesn't actually care how it goes; Kenta could get up on the table and start singing an ode to her unborn child and she wouldn't give a damn. "Yeah, thanks," She says instead because it seems like the right thing to say. "Talk to you later."
"Bye!" Juri says brightly right before she hangs up. Ruki's got just enough time to stop by the restroom before she heads up to Yamaki's office.
"You don't have to come along," She tells Renamon. "It'll probably just be half an hour of me rehashing the meeting."
Renamon nods. "I will be here, in that case."
"Try not to read all of Wikipedia," She teases as she opens the door.
"I make no promises but it is highly unlikely, given that they claim to have millions of articles."
"Don't get too excited but: it's not a claim. They actually do have millions of pages." Ruki tells her with a grin, standing by the door.
"In that case, I amend my earlier sentence: it is entirely unlikely that I will read all of Wikipedia while you are away." Renamon says. It takes her a while to find it but there, a hint of humor hiding under her Digimon's flat tone.
"Bye, Renamon." The door closes behind her before Renamon can return her goodbye. She makes her way back to the lift and her brisk pace, along with the file in her hand, seems to be enough to keep her staff from slowing her down. She catches the lift just as it's rising up to her floor and finds herself alone while she rides six floors up.
"He'll be ready for you in five minutes." A woman tells Ruki upon spotting her.
She nods in acknowledgement "Thanks. I'll just hurry to the restroom."
The woman smiles. Ruki should probably know her name but then again, she doesn't look like the same secretary she'd been greeted by the last time Yamaki had summoned her. Secretaries don't tend to last very long here. They come from their normal, quiet, relatively simple stints as P.A. to so and so, or secretary to this CEO or that Director, and then run as fast as they can to get away when they realize they're not up for a job with odd hours and sudden emergencies, along with situations that sometimes have the fate of the world riding on the outcome.
She's back in four minutes and has just enough time to sit down and look poised and collected when Yamaki opens his door.
"Miss Makino," He says formally. "Come in."
She takes a seat without waiting for him to offer and slides him the file. "Report and notes on our meeting with Prometheus."
"Seriously?" Her boss questions, the air of formality dropped as soon as the door shuts behind them. Boss or not, the fact remains that he's known her since she was a little girl and that makes them friends, at the very least.
"They're the organ people. Surely you can see the appeal in naming themselves after the Titan who regenerates a liver every evening?"
"I suppose," Yamaki flips through the report. "But still: Prometheus?"
"This coming from the man who named an Ark after Sigurd's horse."
"Steed." He corrects her. "Grani was a steed, and a magnificent one at that."
Ruki smirks. "I rest my case."
"Fine, fine." Yamaki concedes, pushing the file away. "Sometimes I go a bit overboard with the mythology."
"Nerd." She teases.
"Enough of that. I didn't actually call you here about… Prometheus." There's still a hint of disdain in his voice and Ruki considers calling him out on it, but Yamaki seems to have serious business to discuss.
"We need you to bring someone in."
"You haven't had me on the strike team in a while." Ruki says with a hint of surprise.
"And that's not changing. I don't need you to apprehend anyone; I need you to recruit someone for Hypnos."
"It's been a while since I've done that," Ruki comments. "But I'm up for it. Who do you want me to drag here?"
Yamaki smirks.
"Akiyama."
"What?" Ruki scowls. "Oh, no, you are freaking kidding me."
"I'm afraid not, Ruki. We need you to bring him in. Hypnos was content to let Akiyama operate on his own in the past, so long as he did good deeds and convinced the public that Digimon can work alongside our kind to help people. But we've kept track of him, and he's been taking on high-risk situations lately. In the past everything was black and white, and he was clearly on the lighter spectrum of things. But things aren't always so easy, as he's now learning. There have been a few instances of him almost choosing the wrong side. If he makes a single mistake and somehow ends up helping the bad guys instead of the good guys, there will be no anime we can produce and no PR stunt we can stage to turn public opinion on Digimon back around."
She can see Yamaki's point, and she understands his concern. But still, Ryo is a royal pain in the ass, one she'd rather not have in her office on a daily basis. "What can Hypnos do?"
"We will let him go on as usual, but he will take a team with him at all times. He won't have to share the glory if he wants to maintain his hero image, but the team will keep him from rushing into situations and will communicate with us to make sure they know exactly what's going on and whose side they're supposed to be on."
"Bloody self-titled noble knight and his running around," Ruki mutters. "And I guess there's no possibility of me delegating this?"
"When I brought you in, Ruki, you asked me for your job description." Yamaki reminds her. "You serve the combined interests of Hypnos and the Digital World; that was and still is your job. And the best way for you to do that job right now is to track down Akiyama, get on a plane and drag him back here kicking and screaming if you have to. Or that fool is going to ruin everything we've worked for."
"Fine," Ruki sighs. "I'll do it. No promises on when I'll actually drag him back. Where is he, anyway?"
Yamaki hands her a file he's just retrieved from one of his drawers. "Here's everything we have on him right now. I'll let you know if anything changes. Until then, you're free to put together a team from your department and get them to focus on this until he's been brought in."
"Right away, captain." Ruki mock-salutes him and picks up the file. "Will that be it, boss?"
"Actually," Yamaki says casually. "I hear congratulations might be in order."
Ruki pales. "How did yo-"
"I have four sisters, Ruki, and I've been there throughout all of their pregnancies. I can see the signs, trust me."
She treads carefully. "You're one of the most observant people I know, sir, but somehow I'm having trouble believing that you figured it out on your own."
"Well," Yamaki gives in. "The four sisters thing is true, but my suspicions were confirmed when Reika called earlier to tell me she'd just seen you and Jenrya in the OB/GYN department at the hospital."
"What was she doing there?"
"Just visiting a friend," He says dismissively. "So, it's true?"
"Yes," Ruki admits. "I'm pregnant. You can't tell anyone, Yamaki." She quickly adds. "Jen hasn't told his father and news spreads in this building as fast as the D-Reaper."
"I can keep a secret, Ruki." He assures her. "Pass my congratulations along to Jen, will you?"
"Yeah," Ruki sighs in relief. "Sure. Thanks. I'll just be on my way then." She hurriedly excuses herself.
"Ruki," Yamaki calls just before she opens the door. "I expect to see a request for maternity leave before you go into labor, understood?"
She turns back to him with a questioning look.
"I may have four sisters, but sometimes I think of you as the fifth. And I will not have you working until the last possible second. Is that clear?"
"As crystal," Ruki affirms. "You're not going to try to pull the intimidating older-brother routine on Jen, are you?" She jokes, her way of acknowledging and accepting what he's just said about seeing her as a sister.
"It's a bit too late for that, don't you think?" Yamaki smirks with a pointed look at her stomach.
Ruki rolls her eyes. "And that's my cue to leave. Bye!"
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"He wants you to what?" Jen asks later that night as they get ready for bed.
"Talk Ryo into working for Hypnos. It's crazy, I know."
Jen tries to towel out the last few drops of water in his hair. "Well, not that crazy. Are you going to do it?"
"He's somewhere in Taiwan, hiding out for a bit. I've got people on stand-by to send him a message as soon as he returns to civilization." She picks up the remote and starts channel-surfing.
"I can't even remember how long it's been since we last saw him," Jen muses as he gets into bed next to her.
"Nowhere near long enough, that's how long it's been." She mutters.
He shoots her a curious look. "Hey, Ruki?"
"Yeah?" Her voice is distracted, with her attention still fixed upon the TV as channels blink in and out.
"Why do you hate him so much, anyway?" Jen asks. "I never did get it. And don't tell me it's because he beat you at cards once."
Ruki sighs and turns off the TV. "Well, when you put it that way, it sounds ridiculous. That's part of it, yes, but I disliked Ryo even before I knew that was him. And before you say anything: I dislike him, not hate him." She clarifies in an attempt to sound less childish.
"It's just the way he swooped in and how everyone treated him as a hero, and the way he acted after, expecting me to say thank you. You know I don't do well with being rescued, especially when I did not need rescuing." Even after all these years, she's still adamant about that. "Ryo was everything in a boy that I hated, basically. And he was the kind of boy my mother always told me would drop into my life, save me and carry me off into the sunset. So yeah, I had a strong urge to hurl him into the sunset as soon as I met him. Or the sun itself."
Jen laughs. "Seriously? You wanted to kill him just because you thought he might be your Prince Charming?"
"No!" Ruki scowls. "I just… I don't know. My mom always seemed so convinced when she told me those stupid stories of hers and her daydreams for my future, so it was wired into my rebellious brain to crush any possibility of that future coming true, I guess. It had nothing to do with Ryo personally; I'd have acted the same way no matter what."
"But it certainly seems personal now." Jen prods at her.
"That's where the cards thing comes into play." Ruki mumbles. "Have I ever told you how I got into Digimon cards?"
"Actually, no." He marvels at the fact that he'd never actually gotten around to figuring that out. "I thought of asking you a few times but never did, for some reason."
"Okay," Ruki begins. "This is two, maybe three years after my father left. There was a summer when my mom was dragged into a media circus and because the girls in my class were being nasty about it, I ended up hanging out with my cousin and his friends instead."
"Is this that one time when a director accused your mom of sleeping around to get all of her modelling jobs?" Jen asks, referring to the only scandal Rumiko has been involved in to date.
"Exactly." Ruki nods; she figures either her mom's told Jen about this or he remembers the whole thing from way back in the day. It had been a huge scandal and almost all of Shinjuku had heard of it. "So you know how it all went down: eventually, the director's assistant, who was sick of his bullshit, put out footage of the original meeting so everyone could see for themselves how the director threatened to ruin my mom's reputation for turning him down."
Jen nods; he remembers how fickle the tabloids had been, accusing Rumiko of being talentless and manipulative one week and then calling her an innocent victim the next. He's never really bothered to keep up with these things but back then, as a bored child waiting in line at the supermarket with his mother, he'd scanned through all of the bright, attention-grabbing magazine covers.
"So," Ruki says, leading them back to her story. "I spent the summer with a cousin I didn't even know I had. It was pretty awkward at first, because we'd never even met, but he tried to help me fit in. After I spent the first day just sitting in a corner, watching them play cards, he tossed a deck at me and asked me to come back the next day. He never said anything about it, and no one offered to teach me. I just kept coming back day after day, and I'd sit in the corner and watch them. Two weeks later, one of them challenged me to a match."
"He came to regret it, I assume." Jen laughs, picturing nine-year-old Ruki kicking a boy's butt at cards in her very first match. He reaches over to turn on the lamp on his nightstand.
Ruki shakes her head as she gets out of bed and walks to the door to switch off the lights. "Not immediately. I actually lost four matches and he was about to give up on me, I could tell. But during those four matches, I was slowly picking up on the little things I'd missed out on while sitting in a corner. I won the fifth match, and the sixth. The next day, three other people challenged me. I won every match." There's a note of pride in her voice as she slips back under the covers. Digimon Queen has always been a title Ruki holds dear.
"Some boys were bitter, of course, but my cousin and his closest friends encouraged me. They said I was a natural, and unbelievably good. They even talked me into signing up for the tournament. It was the first time in my life that I felt like I'd earned a compliment." She admits after a hesitant pause. "They weren't praising me for my mother's looks or my father's brains, my grandmother's manners or my grandfather's strong will. Without me realizing, those cards became a huge part of my identity."
"When the tournament came around, my cousin and three of his friends went with me. They were out of the game fairly early but they stuck around to support me, and the four of them cheered louder than Ryo's band of supporters when I placed second… which was a bit embarrassing." Ruki smiles fondly at the memory, but her lips quickly curve downward.
"It didn't matter to me though. All that mattered was that I'd finally found something I was good at but I wasn't the best. I wasn't number one. And I let that eat away at me until the next year, when I won. By then, I didn't find any joy in the game the way I had at first; I just wanted to prove myself. It was the beginning of the path I was on when you guys first met me."
Ruki sighs. "So you can see why I wasn't thrilled when Hirokazu rubbed Ryo's victory in my face. I hadn't even recognized him at first; I was too busy being pissed at him. But then that idiot just had to recognize Ryo and start gushing about him. It was too much for me, plus I was already in a bad mood because we'd gotten lost again. So I walked off. And that ended up becoming a defining moment for my friendship with Ryo." She finishes.
Jen tries to sound supportive. "Under those circumstances, I think I'd hate him too." He offers to Ruki.
She bursts out laughing. "There's no way you'd ever hate someone for childish reasons like mine," Ruki points out. "But thanks for saying that anyway."
"Anytime," Jen offers, leaning over to kiss her. As she settles into bed, he turns around to switch off the lamp, the last remaining source of light in their room. Ruki moves closer and rests her head on his chest.
They remain that way for a while, until Jen gathers enough courage from the darkness to speak up. "Do you want to buy a house?"
"What?" Ruki asks quietly, her eyes closed. He wraps an arm around her waist.
"It's just…" She hasn't heard him sound this nervous in a while. "I mean, if we're going to do this, we can do it the proper way… if you want." He's quick to add. "Get a house, paint the walls for a nursery, things like that."
"I don't think we need a house for that," Ruki lifts her head and props it up with a hand so that she can shoot him a reassuring smile to ease his nerves. "Besides, your parents lived here up until they were expecting Shiuchon, right?"
Jen doesn't remember much of his earlier years in this apartment. His family moved out when he was pretty young. "It was a tight fit already, having three kids running around here." He relays to Ruki what his parents once told him. "Rinchei and I were sharing a room and my grandparents had to share with Jaarin whenever they came over. So as soon as my parents found out they had another kid on the way, they decided to upsize."
"Still," Ruki says right before she yawns. "Your parents made it work with three kids. We've only got one, for now. I think we can stay here."
"For now?" Jen echoes.
"Hmm?" Ruki hums, her head resting on his chest once more. He has a feeling she might be half-asleep at this point.
"Ruki, you said we've only got one kid for now." He repeats her words. When she fails to say anything, he asks her, very hesitantly, "Do you want more?"
She's quiet for a long moment. "I remember days as a child when I saw siblings arguing over one thing or another, and I was glad I didn't have to deal with that." Ruki says quietly. "But those days weren't as often as the ones when all I wanted in the world was a brother or sister, and I felt so lonely it hurt."
He releases her when she pushes against the hand on her waist and watches her sit up, cross-legged, to face him. "I'm not saying yes," Ruki tells him slowly, carefully. "But if we're going to do this anyway…" She cuts herself off.
"I think I'd do anything to keep our child from feeling as lonely as I did."
Jen pulls her back down to his side.
"Let's just wait and see how things go, okay?" He suggests, kissing her temple.
"Okay." Ruki agrees as she tugs on the blanket and arranges it so that it's covering both of them.
"Besides, I've still got to go through labor and see if that's something I'm willing to go through twice."
He winces at the thought.
The last third of this chapter might not be up to par. I could feel my mind wandering as I wrote it and I revisited it a few times to see if there was anything I could fix, but this is the best I can come up with right now, it seems.
Some news: after this is over (tentatively a month from now, if all goes to plan), I plan on doing a few outtakes. One scene I'll definitely be writing is the big fight both Jen and Renamon have brought up so far. Another I'm contemplating is a short scene of Juri telling the guys about the baby over dinner. I don't think I'll be doing many of these; maybe three of them, five at most. But if you guys have any suggestions or requests, let me know and I'll see what I can do.
E Salvatore,
November 2014.